Instrumentation:

Programme Note:Background Notes: The belief in the Assumption of Mary goes back to the time of her death: the apostles, finding only an empty tomb, concluded that she was taken up into heaven with body intact. In the eighth century, St. John Damascene publicly expressed the Church’s belief: "Although the body was duly buried, it did not remain in the state of death, neither was it dissolved by decay. . . . You were transferred to your heavenly home, O Lady, Queen and Mother of God in truth." The belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary was formally declared to be dogma by Pope Pius XII in 1950. Pope Pius XII states in Munificentissimus Deus: "(W)e pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary.